Candidates vying to represent Minnesotans in the U.S. Senate and
U.S. House of Representatives were given the opportunity to complete an
agricultural survey from The Land.

Candidates were asked
to respond to a series of questions, on topics such as ethanol
subsidies, illegal immigration, agricultural trade policy,
environmental quality issues and how Minnesota can keep young people in
farming.

Ultimately, it came down to one final question for
all the candidates: “Why should a rural Minnesota voter cast their
ballot for you?”

Surveys were mailed in late September to
Republican, DFL and Independence Party candidates for U.S. Senate and
Minnesota’s eight congressional districts. Due to constraints of space,
some responses were edited for length.

Republican challenger Brian Davis did not respond in time to be included in The Land’s election guide.

Seniors and ag issues are pretty important in Minnesota's First and both seniors and farmers may notice these lapses. Davis also couldn't think of any way to improve educational and medical benefits for vets.

Whatever does the Davis campaign spend its time doing? Whatever it is, preparing issue briefs, answering surveys and briefing the candidate for debates don't seem to be priority items.

The obvious question is why did Davis waste his money on a poll . . .[Ollie's note: we think the NRCC may have wasted some of its money on the poll too]

Let’s look at what Walz has going for him.

Being a former high school teacher, Walz used his “ student council ” to energize the district in 2006 and with 22% of the state’s population being between 18-29; this bodes well for Walz in 2008.

Walz has gotten the endorsement from the NRA. Statewide 41.7 households are gun owners.

Walz
was a prime proponent in the passage of the Farm Bill (despite a veto
from President Bush). The First District is primarily a rural district.
Davis’ performance during the FarmFest debate
was less than stellar as the crowd seemed to enjoy Walz’s defense of
his support for farmers using wit and knowledge to his advantage.

Walz has listened to Veterans and brought their issues to the forefront during his first term. 10.5% of Minnesota’s households have a veteran.

Statewide,
there are more DFLers (Dems) (38% in 2004) than Republicans (35%)
leaving 27% as Independents. The inference is that Walz is getting
support from Independents while Davis hasn’t even gotten all the
Republicans ( not surprising when State Senator Dick Day amassed a
third of the votes in the recent primary election. )

For an example of a reporter who raised this story beyond the "one said--the other said" level, we recommend that readers check out Mark Fischenich's Six weeks left, Walz leads Davis from yesterday's Mankato Free Press. Fischenich went beyond barbs tossed back and forth, and compared an independent poll from 2006 with Davis's internal poll from this cycle. It's quite revealing.

Republican challenger Brian Davis is pointing to a new poll released
by his campaign as a sign of DFL Congressman Tim Walz's growing
vulnerability in a race with 42 days to go.

That survey shows Walz now polling at 50 percent, a four-point drop
from a previous poll conducted a month earlier, even as Davis rose in
the polls over the same period, from 27 percent to 32 percent.

The 50-percent mark is often seen as a red line by political
analysts below which an incumbent is considered to be in possibly
dangerous territory. But the poll still shows Walz with a significant
50 percent to 32 percent lead over the Mayo Clinic doctor. [emphasis added]

He ends:

So far, Walz, at least in the eyes of political analysts, looks to be
in a comfortable position. The Cook Political Report, for instance,
ranks the race as "likely Democratic." That means the seat is not
considered competitive, but has the potential to become engaged.

Somewhere in the middle:

The data also suggests that if voters were given the choice between a
Republican and a Democrat for Congress on a generic ballot, 44 percent
would prefer a Democrat, while 39 percent would prefer a Republican,
with 16 percent undecided. Given the margin of error, that makes the
seat a toss-up, the pollsters at the Tarrance Group say.

Ah yes. The hypothetical "seat" is a toss-up. Here's where the bait and switch happens. The actual race according to the poll (if we're to accept a sample of 300 with a MOE of 5.8)?

But the poll still shows Walz with a significant
50 percent to 32 percent lead over the Mayo Clinic doctor.

As Walz's campaign manager pointed out:

But the Walz camp argues otherwise. Schmitter says Davis is not even
polling as high as what a generic Republican is getting in the
district.

The GOP likes to claim that the First is "conservative", and yet the Davis/NRCC poll shows that it's a statistical dead heat between Obama and McCain:

The poll shows GOP Sen. John McCain with a 45 percent-to-43 percent
edge over Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, with 9 percent undecided. That
ranks it as a toss-up, given the poll's 5.8 percent margin of error.

Davis's poll should not bring smiles to elephant faces. For DFLers, it should provide an extra incentive to get out, door knock and call. The district is not only Walz's for the taking, it may finally have turned blue on the Presidential level as well.

This isn't entirely surprising. Not only did Walz and Klobuchar win in 2006, but more DFLers represent the district in the state legislature than do Republicans. Nationally, OBama is polling better in rural areas than Kerry, Craig Crawford writes in Obama's Amazing Rural Opportunity.

Back at Minnesota Central, McPherson Hall thinks that Republicans
may be more motivated, while Walz supporters will be lulled into
complacency by the numbers Davis released:

Walz’ main challenge is still APATHY.
Voters may feel comfortable with Walz and not bother showing up at the
polls. Conversely, the Republicans have reasons to be motivated. The
anti-Obama crowd is further re-enforced by the anti-Franken voters.
With the potential of budget problems at the state level where, all
House seats are on the ballot, the Republicans will want to have their
voices heard. The First District voted for Republicans solidly in 2004
and may do so again.

Davis’ publishing of this poll may have
more of an impact to suppress Walz voters and give Davis a squeaker
victory. Be warned … Apathy is the real challenger.

In more serious news, it doesn't look like Minnesota's congressional delegation is going to write Bush a blank check to bailout those Wall Street fat cats who gamed the financial system into its present dismal state while engorging their own wealth. The PiPress reports in Bush rescue proposal falls flat among Minnesotans:

But fearing economic calamity, many remain open to some type of
costly financial bailout — provided it includes tougher regulation,
limits exorbitant Wall Street salaries and gives taxpayers a stake in
rescued companies.

For the First:

First District: Republican Brian Davis, challenging Rep. Tim Walz, said he'd be "very unlikely" to support any bailout.

"Seems to me that Congress and the administration have hit the
panic button, and this could result in a 20-year problem," he said.

Note how Davis blames Congress first for a proposal that's coming from the White House. This from a guy who, when interviewed by the Fillmore County Journal in late July, compared George W. Bush with Harry Truman.

The PiPress continues:

Walz issued a statement that didn't say whether he'd support or
reject a bailout plan, but he did urge caution and said he hoped to
protect middle-class Americans.

"We've seen before what happens when Congress allows itself to
be backed into a corner by President Bush and forced to make a hasty
decision with long-term consequences," Walz said. "We need answers
before Congress votes on the bailout."

Given the quality of the answers the administration has given in the past, we hope Walz stays skeptic, and shows more of the spine he grew in this year's FISA votes.

October 2 may provide an opportunity to learn more about where the candidates stand on the bailout, when they meet for the first time since Worthington's King Turkey Day. Those who wish to attend the first Walz-Davis debate should register here. Sponsored by the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce, the cost is $20 for RACC members and $30 for all others. The focus:

The debate will allow our membership an opportunity to hear first-hand
where the candidates stand on the national issues of importance to the
business community.

The debate will take place from noon - 1:30 p.m.
Ramada Hotel & Conference Center; 1517 16th St. SW.

American Legion National Commander David K.
Rehbein, also speaking for the Partnership, praised the bill’s
bipartisan cosponsors: Senators Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Russ Feingold
(D-WI), Mary Landrieu (D-LA), Tim Johnson (D-SD), Lisa Murkowski
(R-AK), John Thune (R-SD), Ted Stevens (R-AK), and John Rockefeller
(D-WV in the Senate; Congressmen Walter Jones (R-NC), Michael Michaud
(D-ME), Phil Hare (D-IL), and Tim Walz (D-MN) in the Senate. “We
applaud all of the bill’s sponsors who have taken the lead in Congress
to create a lasting legacy for our veterans by reforming the budget
process to ensure that veterans health care funding is sufficient,
timely and predictable,” Rehbein said.

The new legislation,
called the “Veterans Health Care Budget Reform Act,” would authorize
advance appropriations for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health
care programs one year in advance of the start of the fiscal year, an
idea favored by more than 80 percent of American voters, according to a
survey released today by the Disabled American Veterans.

Last night on the Daily Show, former President Clinton talked about how concentrating investment in housing and mortgages in the early part of this decade helped led to the mess Wall Street is in now. He suggested that investment in new technologies and renewable energy would have left the nation stronger. The Mankato Free Press editorial board thinks it's still the time to Nurture renewable energy.

At the Mountain Lake Observer/Butterfield Advocate, editor Kris Langland looks at the economy in Which cut is deepest?

There were mirrors, but no smoke at Thursday night’s forum on immigration issues at Oak Park Mall.

Less than 30 people attended the forum in the mirrored community meeting room.

The two-hour session began with the playing of a video, which most people ignored. . . .

Since Brian Davis thinks (well, at least back in late July when he was chasing the Republican base) that Bush can be compared to Truman, we close with the Daily Show's John Oliver presenting a somewhat different analogy:

August 21, 2008

The American Trucking Associations today will announce
its support for a bipartisan comprehensive energy bill that calls for
domestic oil drilling, tax incentives and alternative energy research
to lower the price of fuel for the nation's 3.5 million truck drivers
and American consumers.

ATA First Vice Chairman
Charles "Shorty" Whittington and professional truck driver Tony Sifford
will speak about the need for action on energy issues at a press
conference held at 12 CST by U.S. Rep. Nick Lampson (D-Texas) at ATA's
National Truck Driving Championships in Houston, Texas.

The trucking
industry is experiencing the highest prolonged fuel prices in history.
For most motor carriers, fuel has surpassed labor as their largest
expense. It currently costs $1,400 to fill a typical tractor trailer's
fuel tanks. Fuel cost increases ultimately increase the cost of
everything delivered by truck. . . .

Ron Branstner was back in Austin on Monday, selling the same
arguments that he's been pitching for more than a year now -- namely,
that illegal immigrants are stealing jobs from hard-working Americans,
committing crimes, demanding assistance from social services -- and
that the Welcome Center is making it easier for them to do so these
things in Austin.

Yadda, yadda, yadda.

We've heard this shtick before from Branstner, the California
Minutemen border-watcher who seems to show up every time the Minnesota
Coalition for Immigration Reduction holds a public meeting in Austin.

If the coalition asked Branstner to stay away from its next public meeting, its status would grow considerably in our eyes.

As it is, we're pleased to see that some people in attendance at
Monday's meeting dared to challenge Branstner's unsubstantiated claims.
Illegal immigration is a serious national problem that needs a national
solution, but until the dialogue about it becomes a two-way street,
little can be accomplished.

So perhaps it's time for a pre-emptive meeting. Instead of waiting
for the coalition's next rally-disguised-as-forum, we encourage city
leaders to organize the real thing, to allow people from both sides to
air their views and lay their cards on the table. . . .

The Welcome Center, a non-profit founded in 2000 to address
“medical, social, community, legal, financial, educational and other
needs,” was highly criticized, with Branstner claiming the organization
receives millions of dollars in federal support.

Sen. Dick Day, R-Dist. 26, said he attended the forum because he believes it is an issue of concern for people.

“If someone looks at a crowd, you can tell how important it is,” he said. “It’s a big issue, and no one wants to talk about it.

“In Austin, for some reason, there seems to be some animosity
against the Hormel Corp.,” Day said. “These companies are going to have
to come forward.”

To learn more about the issue, Day said he spent three days with
border patrol in Arizona, and that he supports instituting biometric
cards — tamper-proof national I.D.s to prevent fraud and verify country
of origin.

“The solution is to secure the borders,” he said. “It’s going to be a big issue in elections.”

The Rochester Bulletin also reported on the forum. Once again, its headline
frames the mission of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction as being
against "illegal immigration" though the mission of the group is to
limit legal immigration as well.

Newspapers are willing to
publish MCFIR founder Paul Westrum's letters about reducing legal
immigration, but seem unwilling to call the group anything other than "anti-illegal immigration." It clearly supports reducing legal immigration to 200,000 people each year. Is it any wonder the public is confused?

The PB article reports that Senator Dick Day attended the meeting:

Republican State Sen. Dick Day, who recently authored a plan to
secure America's borders, has attended several of MCFIR's meetings in
Austin because he said he supports the group's mission.

"I'm here because (illegal immigration) is a big issue in the
district," said Day. "We should know who is in the U.S. and what they
are doing here. I think its wonderful that a group of people is willing
to talk about it."

Funny, but only a few weeks ago, the Mankato Free Press reported Immigration issue has faded in campaigns, and Dick Day was singing the gas price blues with Brian Davis. Will Day outflank Davis in the race to score with the GOP base? Will immigration trump energy in the September 9 primary?

In a budget cutting move last night, the Austin City Council slashed its contributions to the Welcome Center, the Austin Symphony and the Development Corporation of Austin.

August 17, 2008

Dick Day grabs the lion's share of earned media in WCCO's report, Republicans Face Off In 1st District Primary. From the sounds of things, Brian Davis should spend some of that money on the primary, since Day is a master at getting the press's attention.

We got a chance to look for signs of the primary yesterday in parts of Nicollet, Brown, and Blue County on the way back from the ruins of Farther and Gay Castle. When we drove
through New Ulm, we saw a few signs for both candidates in the
Day-Davis primary, and they seemed evenly matched. We were most impressed by the signage for both
Skillings and Torgelson in the 21B open seat. Neither faces a primary,
but are hustling for visibility and their work shows.

Congressman Walz and Senator Klobuchar will visit Rochester, Albert Lea, Waseca, Mankato and St. Peter tomorrow to talk about equalizing Medicare payments between states and to visit with veterans at service clubs. Details and full schedule here.

Outspoken Owatonna conservative Marlene Nelson writes to say Walz’s office staff was quick to help, in the Owatonna People's Press. When she encountered a problem with transportation to the V.A., she turned to Walz's congressional office. Go read the outcome at the OPP. This is how congressional constituent services are supposed to work.

Phil Heim of Medford did a little research and praises H.R. 6709 (National Conservation, Environment, and Energy Independence Act) in Energy bill is what we should expect. He concludes:

Without labeling ourselves as Republicans or Democrats but as Citizens,
isn’t this the type of working together we expect from our governmental
leadership? Why not call or write your representative or senator and
express your concerns?

Winona Radio reports that Women in Business will host a meeting featuring congressional and state house candidates:

Four political candidates will be the special guests at next weeks meeting of the Winona Women in Business group.

The event will take place at noon on Thursday, August 21st, at Westfield Golf Club.

First
District Congressman Tim Walz and his Republican challenger Brian Davis
will be on hand. Also attending will be Minnesota State Representative
Gene Pelowski and his Republican challenger, Rhett Zenke.

. . .Members of the Austin Area League of Women Voters offered voter
registration at the Austin Public Library Friday and Saturday in
preparation for the Sept. 9 primary election and the Nov. 4 general
election.

. . .The Austin Area League of Women Voters will also be offering
registration at its primary forum Sept. 3 at 6 p.m. at the city
chambers. The event is open to the public. Registration can also be
made at city hall, which is open Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5
p.m.

Minnesota's election laws allow same-day registration on election days, but registering in advance will speed an individual's time at the polling place. Those who is wish to be on the roster at their polling place for the September 9 primary need to register by August 19; for the general, it's October 14.

You may register and vote in Minnesota on the next Election Day if you:

will be at least 18-years-old on Election Day

are a citizen of the United States

will have resided in Minnesota for 20 days immediately preceding Election Day

have any felony conviction record discharged, expired, or completed

are not under court-ordered guardianship where a court has revoked your voting rights

have not been ruled legally incompetent by a court of law

Again, one need not be registered before election day in Minnesota to
vote (registration is available at the polls) but you must register.
Doing it in advance saves everybody time on Election Day.

The blogger at Minnesota First started posting because of concerns about FISA. In Here We Go Again he links to an article about a proposal to expand domestic eavesdropping. At Minnesota Central, McPherson Hall takes several looks at drilling as an issue.

Speaking of bowling--there's going to be a one-sided immigration reduction forum in Austin tomorrow night that features a panelist from FAIR. The convergence of bowling news and FAIR news is as good a superficial excuse as ever to post a video of our favorite bowling song.

August 16, 2008

The latest Cook Political Report
on competitive house races continues to place MN-01 in the least-likely-to-change category,
"Likely Democratic." The handicapper defines this category this way:

"Likely: These seats are not considered competitive at this point but have the potential to become engaged."

Cook updated ratings for two Congressional races on Thursday, as it believes the odds have improved for the Democratic candidates in two seats in Missouri and Alabama. The assessment for the MN-01 general election has remained unchanged.

In a visit to Southeastern Minnesota
Thursday, Day said his 25 years of experience in politics makes him a
good candidate, and he wants to make his campaign about the issues.

Those who slept through geography class may not know that LaCrosse is just across the Highway 61 bridge from LaCrescent. Day is not the only one working the edges of the district.

A friend who travels across large swaths of rural Southern Minnesota for his job writes:

On Highway 68 from the
Brown County
line north through Morgan to Redwood
Falls , there are a series
of groups of Republican signs. They are every 1-2 miles. They all appear on the
same person’s property, namely that of a person that bought the railroad
line that runs along the road in that area. Each grouping had Colemen, Davis, a
local representative candidate, often McCain in small signs, but most
curiously, “Pawlenty for governor” signs. They must think he has
coat tails. Likely they went up for Farmfest and were left up.

That is a fair assessment, especially since the Redwood County vote is unlikely to play a key role in either the primary or general election in the First. Our sign watchers in the field also reported another Day sign up in Madelia, in a field next to the Tony Downs food processing plant.

The candidates for Minnesota’s 1st District congressional seat have
varying views. Republican Dick Day, who is challenging the
party-endorsed Republican candidate Brian Davis in a September primary,
says a fence is the way to go. He also believes in heavy fines for
employers if they are found to have hired workers illegally.

Davis
also favors a fence and enforcement of existing laws. He says a
“tamper-proof system” should be created to determine if employees and
people applying for work are legally entitled to work in the United
States.

Both Davis and Democrat incumbent Tim Walz favor a
system that would allow people in America illegally to return to their
home countries and apply for permanent residency. Davis also thinks
knowledge of English should be required to obtain U.S. citizenship.

The majority of visitors who spoke with America.gov at the Olmstead
County Fair - an annual celebration of the area's agricultural economy
held in Rochester - said they would vote for Obama over Republican John
McCain for president.

We like that part. But then she must have burned one, suffered a relapse of Davis Misinformation Syndrome, or both:

Finding alternative energy sources to relieve high gasoline prices
and confronting climate change are issues that concern the people
surveyed.

Most voters said they believe every individual can do something to
protect the environment, such as recycling waste, driving less and
using less electricity. They split on the question of whether America
should drill for oil off America's coastlines or in the Alaska National
Wildlife Refuge.

Both McCain and Obama favor some form of offshore oil drilling.
Brian Davis, the Republican-endorsed candidate for the area's 1st
Congressional District seat, strongly favors looking for oil offshore
and drilling in Alaska, while 1st District incumbent Representative Tim
Walz, a Democrat, favors developing alternative energy sources such as
wind and ethanol.

This is the second time the poor child been unable to mention H.R. 6709, which would expand offshore drilling. Walz and the bipartisan House Energy Working Group introduced the bill at the end of July, so we're not sure why the State Department can't find it in Thomas. Maybe McConnell scored from the Herald staff when she visited Southern Minnesota.

In Early Voting, Minnesota First's Apollo suggests that if anyone is up for Operation Chaos action, he or she can find it in the district's Republican primary (we assume he's talking about absentee balloting):

Early voting started last Friday, so if you are going to be away from
your precinct on September 9, be sure to go vote. Tim Walz is unopposed
in the primary, but if anyone is feeling up for a little Operation
Chaos, Dick Day is an inviting option!

While we assume that the MF blogger is teasing, we don't recommend such tactics. People should use their vote in good faith, picking the candidates they feel will best serve the country, state or district. In Minnesota's open primary, voters pick to vote for a party's candidates, but must pick those from one party only. And DFLers, after all, have an important U.S. Senate primary vote, so it's also in their own interest not to go down the Operation Chaos path for the sake of the congressional race.

The Winona Daily News editorial board says Sorry, we don’t need reports, just money about the Walz amendment to the bridge bill. We think that both are needed, but the editors' suggestion that the government should act on report recommendations is a good one. The trick is spending the government dime wisely.

August 07, 2008

Maybe it helped that it was an election year, or that Farmfest
wasn't far away. But the people attending an annual DFL fund-raiser on
Tuesday night said the main attraction was the chance to bring voters
and candidates together.

A mix of national and state Democratic
candidates spoke from the front porch of a farmhouse on the Ted Suss
and Janet Marti farm south of Lucan, including U.S. Rep. Tim Walz, U.S.
Senate candidate Al Franken, and Minnesota House candidates Bob
Skillings of New Ulm and Al Kruse of Marshall.

Some of the big issues that emerged in candidates' speeches included health care reform, education, and renewable energy.. . .

Senate District 21 straddles the First and Seventh Congressional Districts.

. . .Common themes emerged in each candidate's answers. Such as the need
for offshore drilling, the image of farmers as stewards of the land,
and a general distaste for the Clean Water Bill.

Walz lauded the
efforts of family farmers trying to "do the right thing but having 16
different organizations" trying to regulate their business. He focused
his answers on finding a common middle ground, saying it is politics
that makes people believe they have to choose a side when really the
sides can work together to produce a mutually beneficial solution. . . .

Go read the rest at the Sentinel. Blueman Hal Kimball has some Farm Fest Ponderings. We weren't at the Senate candidate forum, so we don't have an informed opinion to share about it, but he's close on the Congressional forum. Tinklenberg was terrific when he talked about his background and vision, but he could have mentioned Bachmann's absence once and that would have been enough. Sarvi came off up-beat and personable. Peterson and Walz earned the audience's applause.

Tim Walz and Brian Davis will be guests of Winona's Women in Business, according to this report from Winona Radio:

Four political candidates will be the special guests at this month's meeting of the Winona Women in Business group.

The event will take place at noon on Thursday, August 21st, at Westfield Golf Club.

On
hand will be First District Congressman Tim Walz and his Republican
challenger Brian Davis. Also attending will be Minnesota State
Representative Gene Pelowski and his Republican challenger, Rhett Zenke.

All four will address current campaign issues.

The cost is $12 a person and the reservation deadline is this Monday, August 11th.

For more information contact Tammy Kramer at 689-4552.

Too bad Senator Dick Day can't be there to add some life to the pachyderm party.

. . . As a Speech teacher,
Pat is naturally good at engaging people in conversation and his sense
of humor is an asset in heated political situations. He admits that
most of all, he enjoys Labor Walks because he gets to be outside walking.

Pat is one of many dedicated Release Staffers for Education Minnesota. He successfully recruits and engages union members on working family issues this year. Pat taught with Tim Walz at West High School and supports Walz’s run in Congressional District 6 [sic]. Pat also pulls for union-endorsed Franken and Obama.

In a letter, Minnesotans for Immigration Reduction head Paul Westrum argues for reducing legal immigration in Immigration policy needs major reform. Perhaps now the media will quit identifying the group as being only "anti-illegal" immigration. Westrum clearly supports drastic reductions in the number of people who are willing to play by the rules when seeking to live in America.

. . .The first phase of 200-megawatt wind farm is set to begin construction
as early as 2009, and it has the potential to be a 400-megawatt wind
farm. If fully completed, the Bent Tree Wind Farm would be the largest
stand-alone wind farm in Minnesota.. . .

. . .According to Schultz, 400 megawatts is about enough to power 100,000
homes over the course of a year. Schultz said Alliant Energy has not
yet made a decision to build or not build the second 200 megawatts.. . .

. . .According to Dorman, both phases of the project being completed would
add a tax base equal to adding about six malls or about 40 industrial
buildings. . . .

Oh-- and good luck and congratulations to Joe, Liz and baby Bodell; our prayers also go out to Sgt. Zach Juhnke and the 2700 National Guard members from around the country who will be heading to Kuwait and who will begin serving in Iraq in September. Seven hundred of the soldiers are from Minnesota.

Photos: (Top) It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and only the House Republicans have to have a golf tournament to fund their campaigns. Actually, Boehner held one of those those golf tournaments while a delegated group of his members whined about Democrats adjourning for "vacation." We haven't seen such genius from Boehner since he came to Minnesota State in 2006 to help Gil Gutknecht as a higher education leader--despite the fact he'd taken all those PAC funds from student lenders and had a voting record like this. (Bottom) NRCC sock puppet alert.

July 28, 2008

A new U website will show a disproportionate number of fatal accidents happen outside urban areas.

In "Pray For Me, I Drive Highway 60,″
Dale at Corner House Comments writes about the neglect of Highway 60, another of Southern Minnesota's dangerous roads, in
Pawlenty's MnDOT plan. Money quote from the editor of the Cottonwood
County Citizen:

Can a state agency simply refuse to enact an order passed by the Minnesota Legislature?

Mankato Free Press reports Immigration issue has faded in campaigns. Walz and the two Republican candidates are interviewed in passing; the story gives more time to Republican legislator Bob Gunther of Fairmont, who praises Latinos living in his community:

He disagrees with those who say the workers, with
their low-paying jobs, are a drain on government welfare programs. The
vast majority of Latinos in his district are legal and pay taxes and
payroll deductions. . . .

. . .“To me, there’s not a whole lot of difference between
the Germans, Norwegians and Swedes of 100 years ago and the Latinos
now,” he said.

MSUM student Marcus Piepho tells readers that American oil industry should be celebrated and Democrats scorned. This would make a nice halftime show at the Republican National Convention, bowing and scraping mandatory.

The SD 21 DFL Picnic and Sweet Corn Feed on
Tuesday August 5, 2008 at the Ted Suss & Janet Marti Farm sounds like more fun. Head down to Farmfest for the Senate and Congressional Forums, then stay in the area for supper. The Rochester Democrat has the details.

Speaking of Farmfest, the list of farm organization leaders who will be asking questions at the congressional forum has been announced:

Latest U.S. Census figures underscore the growing immigration
population in our state. Join the Minnesota Chamber as speakers address
how these changing demographics will affect our workforce pool and our
state's economy. The session also will address re-framing the
mainstream debate that often reflects negatively on immigrants and
those employers that hire immigrants. Participants also will receive an
update on state and federal legislation with respect to immigration
policies. We invite business owners and their representatives to attend.

June 06, 2008

The DFL convention isn't the only show in Rochester today. The Post Bulletin reports that John Marshall High School will be holding its graduation tonight, and one of the top grads is Sabina Ceric. A remarkable young woman with a great American story who will be starting at Harvard next fall:

. . .Among the litany of her activities, she was editor of the school
newspaper; student body president; captain of the speech team; first
chair, second violin in the school orchestra and a tutor for students
learning how to speak English.

Principal Richard Stirn said the combination of Ceric's skills and
drive for learning give her the necessary tools to succeed in life. She
has embarked on a remarkable journey, he said from learning English to
becoming one of the most involved students in the high school.

"She's almost beyond words," Stirn said. "The world is truly at her fingertips."

When Ceric was 3, her family fled Bosnia's civil war and landed in
for Germany. She studied at a private school in the Germany for about
seven years before the family moved to Louisiana. They moved to
Minnesota soon after. . . .

. . .At Harvard, she plans to major in international relations, aiming
for a career in politics. Ceric whet her appetite for politics as a
intern for 1st Congressional District Rep. Tim Walz and as the founder
for the local chapter of Students for Hillary Clinton.

April 19, 2008

We were reading the papers today and came across a letter published in the Jackson County Pilot over the signature of Les Opheim of that fair southern Minnesota city. Labeled Food for Thought, here it is:

To the Editor:

About the time our original 13 states adopted their new Constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority will always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about 200 years.

During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith (pilgrims);2. From spiritual faith to great courage;3. From courage to liberty;4. From liberty to abundance;5. From abundance to complacency;6. From complacency to apathy;7. From apathy to dependence (here now);8. From dependence back into bondage.”

Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University’s School of Law in St. Paul points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 presidential election:

- Number of states won by Gore: 19; Bush: 29- Square miles of land won by Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000- Population of counties won by Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million- Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by Gore: 13.2; Bush: 2.1

Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of this great country. Gore’s territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off various forms of government welfare.”

Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the “complacency” and “apathy” phases of Tyler’s definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation’s population already having reached the “government dependency” phase.

If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to 20 million criminal invaders called illegals and they vote, then we can say good-bye to the U.S.A. in fewer than five years.

Les OpheimJackson, Minn.

Most of that looked pretty familiar, so we went online and sure enough, it isn't original. With the expection of the final paragraph about illegal immigrants, it's an urban legend, according to a page at Snopes' Urban Legend Reference site.

What makes it an urban legend? According to the Snopes site:

1. The population of the counties and square miles of area won by each Bush and Gore appear to be accurate. They are consistent with the election-result map published by USA Today on 20 November 2000.

2. The number of states won by each candidate is wrong, but the numbers given (29 and 19) imply this piece was written before the results of the Florida and New Mexico vote-counts were determined. The final tallies were 30 states for Bush and 20 for Gore.

3. The quote from "Alexander Tyler" is very likely fictitious. His name was actually "Lord Woodhouselee, Alexander Fraser Tytler," and he was a Scottish historian/professor who wrote several books in the late 1700s and early 1800s.

However, there is no record of The Fall of the Athenian Republic or The Decline and Fall of the Athenian Republic in the Library of Congress, which has several other titles by Tytler. This quote has also been cited as being from Tytler's Universal History or from his Elements of General History, Ancient and Modern, books that do exist. These books seem the most likely source of the quote, as they contain extensive discussions of the political systems in historic civilizations, including Athens. Universal History was published after, and based upon, Elements of General History, which was a collection of Professor Tytler's lecture notes.

Tytler's book, Universal history, from the creation of the world to the beginning of the eighteenth century, is available for viewing and searching on-line. The complete text was searched for each of the following phrases:

Athenian Republic

democracy

generous gifts

public treasury

loose fiscal

fiscal

bondage

200 years

two hundred years

spiritual faith

In no case was text identified that was remotely similar in words or intent to the alleged Tytler quote.

4. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University is not the source of any of the statistics or the text attributed to him. Professor Olson was contacted (by me) via e-mail, and he confirmed that he had no authorship or involvement in this matter. And, as Fayette Citizen editor Dave Hamrick wrote back in January 2001:

I really enjoyed one recent message that was circulated extremely widely, at least among conservatives. It gave several interesting "facts" supposedly compiled by statisticians and political scientists about the counties across the nation that voted for George Bush and the ones that voted for Al Gore in the recent election.

Supposedly, the people in the counties for Bush had more education, more income, ad infinitum, than the counties for Gore.

I didn't have time to check them all out, but I was curious about one item in particular... the contention that the murder rate in the Gore counties was about a billion times higher than in the Bush counties.

This was attributed to a Professor Joseph Olson at the Hamline University School of Law. I never heard of such a university, but went online and found it. And Prof. Olson does exist.

"Now I'm getting somewhere," I thought.

But in response to my e-mail, Olson said the "research" was attributed to him erroneously. He said it came from a Sheriff Jay Printz in Montana. I e-mailed Sheriff Printz, and guess what? He didn't do the research either, and didn't remember who had e-mailed it to him.

In other words, he got the same legend e-mailed to him and passed it on to Olson without checking it out, and when Olson passed it on, someone thought it sounded better if a law professor had done the research, and so it grew.

Who knows where it originally came from, but it's just not true.

5. The county-by-county murder-rate comparison presented in this piece is wrong.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ), in the year 2000 the national murder rate was about 5.5 per 100,000 residents. Homicide data by county for 1999 and 2000 can be downloaded from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NAJCD), and the counties won by Gore and Bush can be identified using the county-by-county election results made available by CNN. (The NACJD provides not only the number of reported murders for each county, but also the population for each.) The average murder rate in the counties won by Gore vs. the rate in the counties won by Bush can be determined from this data.

By calculating the murder rate for each county and then taking the averages, we find a murder rate (defined as number of murders per 100,000 residents) of about 5.2 for the "average" Gore county and 3.3 for the average Bush county. But since people, rather than counties, commit murders, a more appropriate approach is to calculate the total number of murders in the counties won by each candidate and divide that figure by the total number of residents in those counties. This more appropriate method yields the following average murder rates in counties won by each candidate:

Gore: 6.5

Bush: 4.1

There is a distinct difference between these two numbers, but it is nowhere near as large as the quoted e-mail message states (i.e., 13.2 for Gore vs. 2.1 for Bush). Note that the average of these two figures is 5.3, which, as expected, is very close to the reported national murder rate of 5.5.

Last updated: 3 April 2008

As readers may remember from early April, the publisher of the Redwood Falls Gazette recently published a passed--along-email that is often attributed to Andy Rooney, who disavowed the contents as hateful and contrary to everything America stands for. The column, published on April 1, was not a joke.

Now we find a local Jacksonian passing another urban legend off as his own letter. Presumeably the editors simply trusted the words to be original to the author. The final paragraph strays from the version at the urban legend reference site, though it, too, is not original, as a Google search turns up this blog post and other hits. Just the current version being spread around.

It's certainly an interesting trend: conservatives circulating urban legends in their search for The Truthiness. We're guessing Opheim will probably use the same defense as the publisher--who cares about facts, when the sentiment is "true." As the contemporary Ameircan philosopher Stephen Colbert said:

"We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth—the truth we want to exist."

Who knew that the Snopes site--intended for checking up on facts--would become the lending library for the forces of Truthiness in Minnesota?

. . .From the left, Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., calls the plan a "long overdue step" in a letter
to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, who announced the plan
last week. But Walz indicates that the announcement won't change his
stance on the law: "NCLB is a deeply flawed mandate that is badly in
need of significant reform and overhaul," he writes. . . .

These reactions will mean little in the implementation of the latest
pilot project. But they show how difficult it will be to gather the
votes for NCLB reauthorization—whether it happens this year or next.

P.S. A letter to the editor of The New York Times gave a headline writer the chance to create the latest word play on the NCLB name: No Cynic Left Behind

In a recent conversation with a friend and coworker of mine I found out that “targeting specific individuals” must
mean that if you don’t look like you just came off the farm and are
not saying ” you betcha” a lot, it must mean that you are undocumented.
He had went to pick up some items from a local retail store and was
leaving the store when two men approached him and asked for his
identification. Being a good union brother that respects but likes to
challenge authority, he asked them who the hell they were and did not
produce any ID. They replied that they were with Immigration, Customs
and Enforcement (ICE) and again asked for his identification. He asked
for identification from them and they finally produced it. After
verifying their id’s my friend offered them his driver’s license. The
ICE agents apparently were not satisfied with that and asked to see his
Green Card. Well, after telling them that he did not have a Green Card because he is a citizen, they took his drivers license to a van where they have all their secret Homeland Security electronic
gizmo’s and checked it out. Returning a few minutes later they told him
he was free to go. Before leaving he asked why he was stopped and was
told ” he didn’t need to know”.

I often hear people say that if you are here
legally that you do not have anything to fear from the government.
Fortunately for my coworker, the verification process worked this time.
If their data was inaccurate or incomplete what would have
happened? What is disturbing is that he was chosen at random because he
did not fit the profile of a SW Minnesota native. ICE officials say
they do not randomly pick up people. Apparently the agents in the field
did not get the memo.

Loyal readers know that we frequently hold our nose and dive into a Yahoo group where Ruthie Hendrycks posts in her role as President of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MinnSIR), an unincorporated association that's a subchapter of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction (also small and unincorporated).

We've learned that MinnSIR is teaming up with Minnesota Majority to make a video and it's top secret, according to this post by Ms. Hendrycks:

MINNESOTA MEMBERS

As you know, a video is being planned and scheduled concerning the negative impacts of

illegal immigration on Minnesotans. MINNSIR in coordination with Minnesota Majority

will be filming all those and their stories who choose to participate.

So many times - we hear the other side of this issue in video's and the media.

It
is time that our fellow citizens and those elected to serve the residents of Minnesota -

HEAR OUR THOUGHTS!!!!!!

We do have several individuals already - who have agreed to participate and this email

will be going out to them again separately to arrange a time for filming.

ONLY THOSE WHO CONTACT RUTHIE - will be advised of location and filming date.

This is to ensure those moles subscribed to MINNSIR do not deter our mission.

Filming will take place shortly and should be completed by early April.

I am sending this request out to see if there are more that would like to be involved.

Your identity can be shadowed, but we prefer that not all opt for this option.

Issues of how illegal immigration has impacted you can range from but not limited to:

Economics

Job and Employment Issues

Crime

Health Issues

Language Barriers

School and Education Issues

Etc.

Exactly what we are looking for is YOUR STORIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you know of others that may consider being involved - please contact them

and have them contact Ruthie. Ask only those you trust.

Material used will be at the desegregation of MnMajority and MINNSIR

Ruthie will be the primary interviewer - please contact [email address redacted by editor] to discuss your participation or with questions.

Again

Happy Easter

Ruthie

So MinnSIR and Majority will be making a video about the negative effects of immigration. Let's take a look at the production' sponsors.

First, MinnSIR. Beginning with the email itself, we the self-pity in the message puzzling. For instance, the media frequently give Ms. Hendrycks a platform for her views, as she is trotted out to represent the "anti" position in the debate on comprehensive immigration review. indeed, the group and a rally (which drew fewer than 100 people) was deemed newsworthy by the Strib barely a month after Hendrycks founded it in 2006.

Not once have we seen evidence that the mainstream media has asked the group to provide membership numbers or a balance sheet. Since the group has no paid staff and revenues under $25,000, it's not required to provide any public transparency.

A headline on the front page of the group's website now touts Ruthie's bid for Congress (though the fine print reveals she's in a bid for the open seat in Minnesota House District 21B). Since the group isn't large enough to report to anyone and hasn't voluntarily opened it's books, it's impossible to tell if this in-kind contribution to a candidate is worth over $100, at which point the group would have to register with the state Campaign Finance and Disclosure board.

Minnesota Majority is another kettle of fish entirely. Launched last summer by social conservative Jeff Davis and friends, the group promotes "traditional values" and more. The group is a non-profit 501(c) 4, an organization that can engage in lobbying or political campaigning. Donations are not tax deductible.

And cultural flashpoints over "traditional values" are indeed a war for these folks:

Our country is in the midst of a fierce
civil war between those who cherish our nation’s traditional values and
those who want to radically remake America into a secular progressive
country.

The group generated a fair amount of controversy when a statement attributing longer lifespans to "racial purity" in the populations of Japan and Sweden was on the group's page about health care. As a firestorm of criticism hit, the statement was first defended, then scrubbed from the site. (See several posts at Lloydletta , Democracy at Work, Minnesota 2020 [Mn 2020 fellow John Hecke's column here] and MnPublius for a review of the fracas).

March 22, 2008

Those who missed last night's Almanac appearance by Dick Day and Randy Demmer can watch the segment here. Select March 2008, then March 21, 2008 from the menu. You can watch the whole show or just the segment on First District Republicans.

Congressman Tim Walz has announced he will host a
veterans forum at 1 p.m. Friday, March 28 at the American Legion in
Austin. Walz will review veterans legislation passed by the Congress in
2007 and will discuss veterans initiatives he plans to push for in 2008.

During
his first year in Congress, Walz has been a leader on veterans issues,
fighting for the largest increase in funding for the Veterans
Administration in the 77-year history of the VA, and working to ease
the transition between active duty and veterans’ status.

The veterans forum is free and open to the public and press. No RSVP is necessary. The Legion is located at 809 12th St. S.W.

This
will be Walz’s final veterans forum of March. He held forums earlier
this month in Mankato, Waseca, New Ulm and Rochester.

A University of Minnesota immigration expert will speak Tuesday at Winona State University.

The
American Democracy Project welcomes Ryan Allen, assistant professor of
community and economic development at the Humphrey Institute of Public
Policy at the University of Minnesota.

The lecture is titled “Immigration in the Heartland: Latinos in Minnesota.”

It’s planned for 3:30 p.m. Tuesday at Somsen Auditorium and is open to the public. . . .

Looks to us like the Easter Bunny visited Tim Walz's campaign website and left a goodie-filled new basket. We like the caucus photos the best. The new site is more user friendly, interactive, and done up in a lovely blue palette. Plenty of eye candy for Walz's peeps.

We have to hop down the bunnytrail ourselves, but will return later in the day with more news and analysis.

"A spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
announced Monday that 36 people from Worthington, Pipestone and Sioux
Falls, S.D. were arrested and taken into custody late last week.

The
three-day operation ended Thursday and resulted in 19 arrests in
Worthington, four in Pipestone and 13 in Sioux Falls. Of the 36
arrested, 13 were fugitive aliens, and the other 23 were immigration
violators encountered by the ICE Fugitive Operations Teams during the
targeted arrests. Six of those arrested have criminal convictions in
addition to their administrative immigration violations.

The
majority of those arrested are from Guatemala, with two from Mexico,
two from El Salvador and one from Honduras. Eight are women.

Those targeted in the operation had been ordered deported. . . ."

This is the story that's been picked up by the Associated Press and discussed in the blogosphere, both on the rights and the left. Some, like this blogger, are connecting the arrests with the tragic bus accident and a certain member of congress's calls for action by Immigration and Customs enforcement:

Do you think it was the public anger over an illegal criminal alien
killing four children, then more trouble with identification, and most
likely fraud? Or do you think the catalyst was Michele Bachmann
cracking the whip?

How unfortunate for that blogger that editors at WCCO, and many of the other media outlet running the story didn't get to read the full version of the story in the Worthington Globe. Find out why connecting the raids with the crash is a post hoc fallacy below the fold.

The New Ulm Journal praises The Transportation 6, while the Owatonna People's Press gives Senator Day Kudos to his decision to skip the endorsement and go straight to the primary. The editorial board scolds the GOP:

. . . But what
southern Minnesota's Republicans are doing and what they ought to do
are two very different things. They ought to recruit and support
candidates who have the best chance of representing their views in
office. Instead, they are throwing a political tantrum because one
candidate had the audacity to suggest that voters, not just a few party
insiders, should have a say in an election. . . .

"If you've seen the ads, you might agree with Walz's press secretary
that they're fear-mongering cheap shots, trivializing an issue on
which patriotic people on both sides of the issue can reasonably
disagree."

It was an unfortunate contribution to an already
awful tragedy when it was revealed that the driver of a vehicle that
slammed into a school bus, resulting in the deaths of four children, is
an apparent illegal alien.

. . .As for the woman in the center of the
storm, she is now a reference point for those who argue she represents
a more compelling argument for the state to seek a more aggressive
solution to the illegal immigration problem. The bus incident does
serve to remind us that undocumented aliens pose a variety of risks.
How many drive without licenses? How do we measure the impact on
communities as illegals resort, essentially, to living underground —
avoiding contact with authorities, mistrusting them and many of their
neighbors to hide their illegal status?

Most do their best to fit in and become
valued members of the towns they live in. But as some among them avoid
the responsibilities of citizenship (continually aware that they are
not, after all, citizens), how do they increase the chance that an
incident of the type that occurred near Cottonwood last week, can occur?

These are hard issues to quantify.

Perhaps we should refrain from even
attempting to tie the bus-van accident to immigration issues at all.
There are enough bad drivers in this state for us to know that they
come in all shapes, sizes, nationalities, legal status and levels of
sobriety. Bad driving is no respecter of persons, on either the giving
or receiving end — as we were reminded again last week.

Read the entire editorial at the Free Press.

Sadly, there are people living in the district who began to tie the bus crash firmly to the debate over immigration policy rather rapidly. Take Ruthie Hendrycks, the leader of Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform, an incorporated association that's a subchapter of the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction.

Before the children were mourned and laid to rest, Hendrycks, a candidate for the GOP endorsement in Minnesota House District 21B, was already working to organize a rally exploiting the tragedy. From a posting on Saturday, February 23:

NEVER FORGET THE COTTONWOOD FOUR

Members - MINNSIR will be taking a leading role in educating the public to the "Human
Costs" of illegal immigration and this tragedy. We are also working with other organizations on this horrific, PREVENTABLE and senseless crime.

In rememberance.............

Hunter Javens, Jessie Javens, Emilee Olson, Reed Stevens

A rally in the wake of this tragedy is being planned.

MINNSIR will be working in coordination with another group on this rally and
information will be provided when all details are arranged. - Please
plan to attend!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We can only hope that Republican activists in HD 21B have the good hearts and good sense to reject this style of "leadership."

Bachmann and O'Reilly's fevered vision of marauding illegals committing
crimes and endangering public safety all across the country stands in
stark contrast to the findings of a study released this week by the
Public Policy Institute of California. In culling through arrest and
incarceration statistics from the state, the authors found that
immigrants were far less likely to commit crimes than native-born
residents.

"For example," they write in the study abstract, "among men ages 18-40
- the age group most likely to commit crime - the U.S.-born are 10
times more likely than the foreign-born to be in jail or prison. Even
among noncitizen men from Mexico ages 18-40 - a group
disproportionately likely to have entered the United States illegally -
the authors find very low rates of institutionalization. Such findings
suggest that longstanding fears of immigration as a threat to public
safety are unjustified."

February 26, 2008

The Rochester Post Bulletin editorial board opines Republican disunity can only help Walz. Not true: bloggers are rejoicing over the promise of great material from the GOP wannabe candidates. We have a lot to look forward to. The board writes:

"The end result is that, instead of a GOP candidate setting his sights
on Walz on March 30, the 1st District will get to watch two Republicans
spend the next five months vying against each other until the Sept. 9
primary."

And speaking for ourselves at BSP, we're grateful for the month remaining until the First Congressional District convention. We'll miss either Demmer or Davis.

Pity. We wanted to read Hendrycks' “Domestic Violence and The Mediation Process - Pros and Cons." We had thought that domestic violence was a crime, not a private matter, since the 1970s at the very least. Looks like we'll never be enlightened now. She has, however, found time to post an article from the John Birch Society's magazine to an online group.

We have discovered that Ruthie might be as confused about Bluestem Prairie as she was about the accreditation of colleges. She believes that we are Tim Walz's website:

Please note: Mark Meyer has dropped out of Cong District 1 race - this leaves four candidates. MINNSIR supports Brian Davis or Dick Day
for this seat. A clarification of one candidate is forthcoming early
next year following an upcoming survey to find out exactly where they
stand and to allow you to make your choice. However, note Tim Walz has
this trash posted on his website.

Bluestem Prairie is an independent blog that is not part of Congressman Walz's campaign or congressional office. She can find Tim Walz's congressional site here and his campaign site here. We hope she will share the facts of her confusion with her membership.

Her confusion is only matched by California Minuteman Ron Branstner's belief that more that one person writes our posts, given our annoying use of the editorial first person "we." Our readers can sleep soundly at night knowing that all posts over the blog de plume "Ollie Ox" are written by one person.

Hendrycks might also share this news with the Brown County GOP Convention on Saturday, where she will be promoting her candidacy for the State House. GOP Congressional contenders Davis, Day, and Demmer will be there, as well as State Senator Dennis Frederickson, who had the decency to vote for the transportation bill. Should be a lively gathering.

If only Captain America were still alive! The private sector could underwrite the expense, and NRO shills for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies could go back to scolding Marvel Comics for endangering America's national security.

February 20, 2008

A month ago, the Rochester Post Bulletin ran Anti-immigration group challenges Welcome Center's goal, an article about the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction's request to go through the books of Austin's Welcome Center. The full article is no longer on the Post Bulletin's site, but we've retrieved a copy from an immigration "reform" group's forum.

The immigration reduction group wanted to look at the Center's operations and finance:

It won't be the group's first visit to the center, according to
member Dean Dykeman, who said that during the previous visit, the group
asked several questions about the motives of the center.

"I'm open to everybody," said Silvestry. "We are an open book. We don't have anything to cover."

The Welcome Center, founded in 2000, provides programs and services
to newcomers that promote self-sufficiency and multicultural
understanding among the increasingly diverse population in the area.

According to Silvestry, about 6 percent of the Welcome Center's
$256,000 annual budget comes from the city. The rest is funded mostly
through grants and donations.

However, many MCFIR members said they believe the Welcome Center is
a "placement agency" for illegal immigrants that is "funded by the
taxpayers of Austin."

Paul Westrum, founder of MCFIR, suggested at the group's monthly
meeting Tuesday that some members meet with Silvestry to discuss
operations, including the center's funding formula. . . .

The article made us wonder about the legal status of the two Minnesota-based immigration reduction (or reform) advocacy groups most often cited in the press, the Minnesota Coalition for Immigration Reduction (MCFIR) and its sub-chapter, Minnesotans Seeking Immigration Reform (MinnSIR).

February 19, 2008

Congratulations to Jennifer and David on the birth of Sage Elizabeth,
6 lbs, 10.5 oz. May she grow to be as good-looking, bright, strong, and courageous as both her parents, as kind as her grandmother Darlene, and as dedicated to community and country as her late grandfather Steve.

NATO soldiers met with local officials prior to the declaration on the
importance of keeping Kosovo peaceful when in the world spotlight.

Overall,
he said, the presence of the troops have been well-received in Kosovo.
He said the soldiers are “well-respected” by the Serbians and “much
more well-respected, even revered” by the ethnic Albanians.

He said when the independence was declared the soldiers made sure Serbs were protected while Albanians celebrated.

In the past seven years, Bush has added an incredible $4 trillion to
our national debt. I’m pleased that Congress, under its new leadership,
has started to get a handle on spending by passing pay-as-you-go budget
rules that require new government spending to be paid for. This is a
good start, but more needs to be done.

With the passage of this
stimulus package, it seems that Congress and Bush have begun to realize
that we’re all in this together. The stimulus package is one example of
the good things that can happen when Congress and the president work
together, but we can’t stop there.

Next, we need to build on
that accomplishment, set aside our differences and take some hard steps
to balance the budget and reduce our national debt. It won’t be easy,
but the work we do now will have a lasting impact on the economy and
the types of economic opportunities our children have available to them.

More than 50 Members of the U.S. House of
Representatives called upon Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice Friday
to challenge Azerbaijan's threats of renewed war against Armenia and
Nagorno Karabakh, and to take concrete action to hold leaders in Baku
accountable for actions that directly undermine the Administration's
policy of fostering peace and stability in the South Caucasus region,
reported the Armenian National Committee of America.

The
letter, initiated by Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chairmen Joe
Knollenberg (R-MI) and Frank Pallone (D-NJ), cited specific recent
threats by Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and stressed that,
"these fear tactics and threats of war go directly against the United
States' goal of peace and stability in the South Caucasus region.
Azerbaijan has been threatening war with Armenia for years. However,
these recent public comments made by high-ranking government officials
prove that their rhetoric has turned into a very real and dangerous
threat."

Drazkowski expressed his concerns in an opinion column Feb. 6 about the
budget difficulties in our courts. As our representative in the
Legislature, he should have that concern.

He is also concerned
about the high cost of administrative services within the court system.
This is a legitimate concern. Among these costs is the cost of
interpreters for those who don’t speak English or do not speak English
well.

Drazkowski seems to be proposing that non-English speakers
no longer receive the assistance of an interpreter within the state
court system unless they bear the cost of interpretation themselves.

The
Winona Human Rights Commission is concerned about such a proposal
because it stands in direct contravention of existing law, specifically
the United States Civil Rights Act, a law that requires an interpreter be provided in this setting.

Title
VI of the Civil Rights Act is the “Prohibition Against National Origin
Discrimination Affecting Limited English Proficient Persons.” For
guidance, see www.hhs.gov/ocr/lep/revised lep.html.

The Waseca Historical Society presented a program about Waseca's Black History remembered. Interesting snapshots from history; we find the story of the three African-American baseball players on the town's 1900 state championship town to be especially ironic in light of the knuckleheaded racist remarks former Twins owner Calvin Griffith made to the Waseca Lions Club in 1978..

He had contacted state Rep. Patty Fritz with a petition and just expected to have his idea turned down. Instead, Fritz met with him to work on the bill's language. Both Fritz and Gibson expect it to pass. More in the Rochester Post Bulletin story, Teen on quest to lower blood-donor age to 16. Kids these days!